Sandia Crest

The Sandia Mountains is a range just to the east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can drive all the way to its highest point, at 10,678 feet (3,255 m). The side facing Albuquerque is quite steep, but on the eastern side it's a nice, lazy drive up the hill.

Panoramic views out over Albuquerque.


If you're disgustingly fit, you can walk the Sandia Crest for over a mile in both directions. There are also paths down both hillsides.


Skeeeeptical. I fucking hate so-called selfies and the only reason I could wish for a selfie-stick would be so I could bludgeon selfie-takers to death with it.


This is known as the Forest of Steel. The Sandia crest is home to quite a few radio transmitters.


Views towards the east.


My kinda place.

Quote of the Day

The difficulty in life is the choice.
- George Moore

Petrified Forest National Park

Monday I drove through mostly pleasant landscape from Phoenix, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There have been parts with lots and lots of cacti, high mountain forests and cozy lakes, vistas that seemed to stretch forever and last, but not least, the Petrified Forest National Park.

The park has, as the name alludes to, lots of petrified trees. In fact, it has the world's highest concentration of them. Still, the most fascinating thing to me were the multicolored badlands that lay scattered along the way (the park partially runs together with the Painted Desert).

The trees are appx. 225 million years old, from a time when Arizona was almost at the equator. In addition to the trees and the badlands, they have found dinosaur bones in the area. I highly recommend a visit!

Petrified wood just outside the visitor center.


This skeleton looks almost like a prehistoric crocodile.


Inside the visitor center they also have this corner where kids can play paleontologists. Or make sand castles, what do I know.


The desert has colors.


It looks a lot like the Badlands up in South Dakota, doesn't it?


If you look closely you can just make out lightning slightly to the right of the middle.


Purdy hills and long, long views.


Colors.


This is the Inn just north of I-40, which functions as a museum today.


The walls inside are decorated by some injun artist whose name and tribal affiliation has escaped my tiny mind.

Quote of the Day

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.
- John Lubbock

Lake Havasu City

Lake Havasu City lies in Arizona and is most famous for being the new home of the old London Bridge. The Bridge was sold by the City of London to wealthy (and quite possibly insane) oil man Robert P. McCulloch in 1968. It was torn down brick by brick and reassembled in Arizona, where it opened to traffic in 1971.

Lake Havasu is today an important recreational area for California and Arizona and the city has blossomed into quite the busy little place, although I must say I thought it was relatively quiet there for a summer weekend, but maybe tourist season hasn't quite started yet. The whole place gives off an impression of prosperity and the area down by the bridge looks like a friendly, but ultimately deranged attempt at recreating London in Arizona. I chuckled, but for all the wrong reasons. Take a look and judge for yourself.

A large fountain guarded by two silver lions, their pedestals read "City of London". Only it can't be London, cuz there are no beggars in the streets, no flocks of pigeons crapping on you and you can't hear a Scandinavian language being spoken anywhere.


Hammering up some diagonal boards on the outer wall doth not a Tudor house make.


This phone booth, which looked like the phone had been ripped out of it by chavs high on meth, was really the only authentic looking thing there.


Jesus wept.


The London Bridge.


From a different angle.


Surprisingly, the river walk was deserted.

Yuma Territorial Prison

Yuma Territorial Prison was opened in 1875 and closed its doors in 1909. It has since operated as a high school and is now a museum. If I seem more confused than usual, do keep in mind that I walked around in over 100 degrees Fahrenheit today, so my recollection of events may be a bit foggy.

This was a watch tower.


These were wetlands. Yuma is one of the driest areas in the US, so that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm fairly certain that's what the signs said. Before, the waters of the river used to come up to the foothill of the prison, but human need of water has reduced the flow to a drizzle.


The prison building, now housing the exhibits. The cell blocks are at the back.


Inside a cell. There were usually 6 men to one room.


A model showing the prison in the olden days.


The Dark Cell.


This is Madora Ingalls, librarian and wife of one of the wardens. In 1891, she manned (femaled? womaned?) a Gatling gun during an attempted prison break and kept the criminals in check. I don't think I fantasized it, but at that point I can't be certain.

Quote of the Day

God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

Of course, America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde

The Salton Sea

Drove the long way round Salton Sea today from Indio to San Diego. Salton is entirely manmade from an engineering mishap in 1905 and its salinity is higher than the Pacific Ocean. I stopped at one of the numerous State Beaches along the shore and took some pics.

The Salton Sea is the largest in the state of California.


A pelican minding his own business.

Quote of the Day

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
- Mark Twain

Return to Joshua Tree National Park

I'd been to Joshua Tree National Park once before, in October 2011 with my old pals Albie and Court. This time I was on my own, sweet own, and the photographic loot was correspondingly meager. Still, the scenery up there is quite fascinating in an otherworldly sort of way, and as always when I have just purchased my annual National Parks pass (a steal at $80!), I had a huge grin on my face driving in.

Some Joshua Trees.


Some rocks. Wind and weather have shaped them into stwange forms.


At a place called Jumbo Rocks, they had made several cozy picnic areas.


This is a small dust devil that I spotted.


It almost looks as if it's growing out of the tree.


And this is a much bigger one. I watched it veer toward the mountains on the left and just dissipate upon contact.


This vast plain is a part of the Pinto Basin.

Forest fire from afar

Wednesday I had a fortunate chance encounter with an old guy at the Route 66 museum. I casually mentioned that I was thinking of going south to San Bernardino National Forest and Big Bear Lake, as it was supposed to be mighty purdy up there. He, however, informed me that there were forest fires in that area, and today I got a glimpse of the inferno raging up in those hills.

These two pics were taken just outside Yucca, north of Joshua Tree National Park.




And these two were taken from Keys' View inside the park.

The Route 66 Museum in Victorville

Later in the day I drove up to Apple Vally to check out the Route 66 Museum. It is a nice little museum, filled to the brim with stuff, glorious stuff! Also, the staff seems to be solely pensioners with nothing better to do, so be ready to talk and talk and talk - not that I mind; Americans are, as I have noted ad nauseam on this blog, usually very nice people.

Peace and love, baby!


The shitter. Ah knows how to finds 'em!


This was at the bottom of it. Hehe.


I love how they think of children as "tax deductions".


The iconic Burma Shave. Some of the road commercials this company made can only be described as fine art.


They had this map where people could stick in pins to show where they were from and they had lots of different currency up there too.


Steinbeck knew what he was writing about.


Jukebox from the 1950s, still working. Apparently they had found it in a chicken coop, with hens roosting in it.


An old gas pumping apparatus.